Why concurrency is necessary
In simpler times, computers had only one CPU and this marginalized the need for concurrency. Hardware manufacturers successfully found ways to make CPUs faster, and this made single-threaded programs faster. But eventually, this had a diminishing return, and manufacturers found they could increase computational power by putting multiple CPUs in a device. From desktops and laptops to servers and smartphones, most hardware nowadays sports multiple CPUs, or cores.
For developers, this is a major disruption in building software and how coding is done. Single-threaded software is easier to code and works fine on a single-core device. But a single-threaded program on a multi-core device will only use one core, leaving ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access